REVIEWED BY DAN STUMPF:

   

WILKIE COLLINS – The Woman in White. Low, UK, hardcover, 1860. Harper, US, hardcover, 1860. First published in serial form in 1859–60, appearing in Charles Dickens’ magazine All the Year Round (UK) and Harper’s Weekly (USA)

THE WOMAN IN WHITE. Warner Brothers, 1948. Alexis Smith, Eleanor Parker, Sydney Greenstreet, Gig Young, Agnes Moorehead, John Abbott and John Emery. Screenplay by Stephen Morehouse Avery, from the novel by Wilkie Collins. Directed by Peter Godfrey.

   The ending is a bit cumbersome, but Wilkie Collins’ novel is a genuine Victorian masterpiece of plot and counter-plot, with lively characterizations throughout and a plot that defies synopsis.

   Briefly, the tale unspun in Woman in White involves Laura Farlie, a lovely young heiress, her almost-as-lovely and much-smarter companion, Marian Halcombe, and a mysterious young woman who resembles Laura, wandering about dressed in white — hence the title of the piece.

   All three ladies become enamored to one degree or another with art teacher Walter Hartright, but all three become the intended prey of the insidious Count Fosco and the ruthless Sir Percival Glyde.

   What follows is a panoply of melodrama, with false heirs and heiresses, secret agreements, lingering illness, the odd murder and involuntary impersonation, secret societies, death by fire….

   The wonder of it is that under Collins’ skillful pen it all reads much better than it sounds. The smooth prose and Dickensian characters kept me enthralled with this long after my willing suspension of disbelief had crashed to the floor.

   I should also add that among the characters, Count Fosco comes off the most compellingly. Rotund, loquacious, charming and venomous, he almost seems as if, writing in 1859, Collins foresaw the coming of Sydney Greenstreet and wrote the part just for him.

   Small wonder then that Greenstreet appeared as Count Fosco in the Warners film of 1948. Indeed, he is the linchpin of a sumptuous production with an excellent cast, despite the truncations of plot, and the unfortunate miscasting of Gig Young as the lead (A capable actor, but try to picture Bogart in Pride and Prejudice to get my drift.) the film is splendidly faithful to the tone and feel of Collins’ classic. Agnes Moorhead, John Abbott and John Emory sparkle in supporting roles, and Sydney Greenstreet was born to play the porcine, mellifluous Count Fosco. The fast resolution is a definite improvement on the book.

   But I found myself most intrigued by the happy ending, which (WARNING!) finds our hero and heroines vaguely landing in some sort of merry menage-a-trois. Oddly apt in view of Colins’ feelings about marriage (He spent his later years in the company of two ladies.) but surprising in a Hollywood film of its time.